Tarnished

About this book

"Leadership is central to the identity of the U.S. military. Service academies and pre-commissioning processes stress the development of conscientious leaders of character as a raison d'etre. The services spill a great deal of ink on doctrinal publications and professional journal articles that focus on various aspects of leadership. In most of those publications, leadership is expressed as a universally positive notion, a solution to problems, and something to be developed through an extensive and costly system of professional military education. While bad or toxic leadership, abusive supervision, and petty tyranny in organizations have been of perennial interest in the corporate and public sectors, there has been relatively sparse focus on its scope and nature in the military. Tarnished: Toxic Leadership in the U.S. Military rectifies that lack of attention by focusing on extant and emerging literature to define and suggest possible solutions that are appropriate to the military context. Throughout, author and leadership expert George E. Reed is less interested in the reason why toxic leaders behave as they do and more concerned with the phenomenon from an organizational level of analysis drawn from individual experiences. Tarnished makes the case that quality of leadership is an important yet insufficiently studied area of inquiry and that there is a detrimental impact on military formations that justify additional measures to militate against the impact of toxic leadership. Furthermore, Reed draws upon correspondence, discussions, focus groups, surveys, interviews, as well as empirical research to assert how system dynamics and military culture contribute to the problem. Finally, and most importantly, the book focuses on providing advice and insights to those suffering from a toxic leader, educators developing tomorrow's military leaders, and military administrators working to revamp the current system."-- "A study of toxic leadership in the U.S. military and an examination of ways to better the command structure through a revamp of the way leaders are trained and treated"--